Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Chicago Green Roofs

Here's a green roof of Chicago City Hall, as featured on Discovery Science. This 20,000 sq. ft. green roof demonstrates all benefits of having plants on tops of buildings such as cooler temperature in the building, less rain water, less CO2, and just visual pleasure.



Link to Google Maps

Read more about green roofs:

Libya circles

Similar to Russian oil industry, farmers in Libya (which is right in the middle of Sahara) use vast areas of the planet to survive in the tropical climate.

These circles that brought many discussions in Google Earth community are huge 500 meter in diameter agriculture fields that use groundwater for irrigation.

According to NASA, the green circles serve as a good landmark for austronauts on the ISS.



Libya agriculture project in Google Maps

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Oil explorations in Russia

If you point your Google Earth to Russian North, you will see terrain covered with white straight lines. That's not a top-secret military network nor actions of aliens - that's just one of the largest oilfield on the Earth located near Surgut and Nefteyugansk.



Taking a closer look...



View this in Google Maps

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Reality vs Google Earth

Seems like there's no much difference between what you can see on a plane and sitting on your chair at home. You don't get any turbulence but you're not getting anywhere as well.

Dahab, Egypt taken from plane:



Dahab, Egypt in Google Earth:



Dahab in Google Maps

Enisey Ship

Here's a ship that goes up the Enisey river in Siberia, in about 1730 km (1074 miles) from Krasnoyarsk. Navigation in this area starts only in June and finished in early October. Probably, this ship goes from Dudinka to Krasnoyarsk. A round trip for container vessel like this one from Krasnoyarsk to Dudinka and back to Krasnoyarsk takes 17 days (including loading and unloading in ports).



This place in Google Maps
The ship in Google Earth

Multinational Force and Observers

This is an observation post of the Multinational Force and Observers peacekeeping troops on Tiran Island in Red Sea. Check the drawings on the rocks: it reads Ranger and there are images of an eagle, bull head and elephant (?).



This place in Google Maps
MFO in Google Earth

Saturday, April 12, 2008

Singapore Roofs

Singapore looks too much different from above. I think that's because cars are almost banned there and air is very clean. This is some storage facility, as you can see there are lots of trucks. A person who came up with such design and colors must have been a real artist.



This place in Google Maps

Johnston Atoll - WTF?

Well, this one is interesting: an airport in the middle of the ocean. Johnston Atoll: a home for high altitude nuclear tests. If you open it up in Google Earth, you can see on some pictures that it used to be a pretty fun place with dorms, diners and a golf course. But now it's all covered with burnt grass and completely forbidden...



View in Google Maps

Driving in Mongolia

Mongolia again. This time it's winter and someone is have real fun driving on the ice of Marrat Lake. With roads being really awful in Mongolia, this should be a true relief, to drive on flat endless ice.





There are some more paths - just look for them along the shore.

View in Google Maps

Friday, April 11, 2008

Yurtas in Mongolia

My first post is about my wonderland - Mongolia. In this picture you see 2 yurtas (those white round things) and some construction nearby at a shore of Marrat Lake. Looks like there's a herd pasturing at the right.

There are many isolated yurtas in the area. Distance between them is from 0.5 to 2 kilometers.



See in Google Maps

Yurtas in Google Earth